Ouch.

There were times watching the Caps and Senators tonight that I felt very optimistic. There were times I felt downright smug.

And then there were the times that just made memories of last year come screaming back.

Such is preseason, I guess.

For the first half of tonight's game the Caps were either dominant or at least at equal footing with last year's Eastern Conference champs. Olie looked sharp. The power play was clicking. Nylander and Backstrom were wowing the crowd with dazzling puckhandling displays. The Caps opened up a commanding 3-1 lead and seemed to be on their way to their first win of the preseason...except no one told the Senators it was over.

It's hard to be too down about this one (at least that's what I tell myself to keep from losing all the optimism I've gathered this summer). After all, Semin was still back in Washington, Fleischmann and Klepis were playing on the top two lines, and Olie came in to Ottawa expecting to back up Neuvirth and ended up playing all 60 minutes.

Oh, and as my good friend HG, who was lucky enough to attend pointed out, Clymer wasn't playing.

Yeah. That was probably it.

Best moment of the night, by the way, was Lawrence Nycholat (remember ol' Larry?) knocking Bradley down and then not two minutes later dropping the gloves with Sutherby. What is that all about? Maybe he's still pissed at Brads for calling him a rookie...

The Caps are 0-1-1 in the preseason so far, and as my father loves to remind me, at the end of the night the team is still 0-0-0 to start the season. Need further proof that the preseason doesn't mean a damn thing? The first year of the Caps' existence they went 3-4-1 in the preseason. They then won 8 games all...season...long. So I choose to remain sane and not freak out about blowing a two-goal lead, instead looking ahead to what's next - another meaningless tilt Saturday night against Vinny and the Bolts.

Feel the excitement. Pass the Nyquil.